BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to allow banking regulators to trim debit-card fees collected by financial institutions, a move Regions Financial Corp. said is forcing it to contemplate getting out of that business.

The Senate vote was over a Federal Reserve proposal that's set to take effect next month that would cap debit-card transaction fees at 12 cents, compared with the current average of 44 cents per swipe. Senators who wanted to block the Fed's plan needed 60 votes to prevail. They only got 54.

Banks relied on swipe fees paid by merchants for $20 billion in revenue last year. Birmingham-based Regions, the largest bank based in the state, collected $346 million in swipe fees in 2010. The proposed new fees would mean the metro area's largest private-sector employer stands to see debit-card swipe revenue fall by 73 percent to $94 million.

"The 12-cent cap that they put on just isn't even remotely close to covering our costs," Regions Chief Financial Officer David Turner said Wednesday at a New York investors conference, according to Bloomberg News.

Turner, Bloomberg reported, told the audience at the conference that Regions may have to decide whether to "even offer a debit card, or, if we do, have the customer pay for that."

Regions serves 5 million households in its 16 state operating area, and has been opening about 1 million new checking accounts a year, translating into millions of debit-card holders.

Regions spokesman Tim Deighton, speaking in an interview in a few hours after Turner's comments, said there are no immediate plans to leave the debit-card business, and that ever doing is highly unlikely.

"We plan to continue issuing debit cards and not issuing cards would be an extremely unlikely possibility," Deighton said.

The prospect of lower fee revenue comes as Regions attempts to emerge from an earnings drought that hasn't provided an annual profit since 2007. The company earned a profit in the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this one, helped along by one-time gains from asset sales.

The company, employer of 6,000 people in the metro area, has been trying to peel away layers of unpaid loans made to home buyers and real-estate developers who couldn't or didn't repay what they borrowed during the housing bubble.

The prospect of lower swipe revenue was behind Regions' purchase this week of a $1 billion credit-card portfolio from FIA Card Services. Regions sold that part of its business in 2000 for $300 million. CFO Turner, Bloomberg reported, told the investor conference in New York that Regions is getting back into the credit card business to mitigate the loss of swipe-fee revenue.

"There will be some customers, that if you charge them for a debit card, they'll just use a credit card, and that's why we're back into credit cards," Turner said.